Joe Pompeo of Capital New York examines whether the top editor at The Wall Street Journal, Gerard Baker, should be called managing editor like his predecessors or editor.
Pompeo writes, “The reason for having ‘managing editor’ as the top title, our sources said in a nutshell, has to do with nuances about seniority, divisions between the newsroom and the editorial page, and—at the end of the day—’custom.’
“As for why Baker is listed solely as editor in chief on the actual masthead in the print edition: for one thing, it might seem odd to put a managing editor above the paper’s two deputy editors-in-chief or its executive editor (a title that signifies, by contrast, the top slot at The New York Times and The Washington Post, but that’s another story). Plus the masthead does say: ‘Published since 1889 by Dow Jones & Company.’
“Confused? You’re not the only one.
“‘You’re editor in chief of Dow Jones. What does that mean?,’ Charlie Rose asked Baker during a Monday night interview on Rose’s PBS show.
“‘This is kind of a little complicated sort of internal taxonomy,’ said Baker. ‘The reason that the division [between the Journal and Dow Jones titles] has been erased somewhat is that we merged the two news organizations over the last few years so that we are now one single news organization.'”
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